Picking up the pieces
by Snorkling
Summary: The newspapers called it "The Titans Tragedy". Five lives were destroyed, one way or another. And after three years, it's time to pick up the pieces and start living again. We just need to figure out how to do that. We've made some horrible mistakes.


**A/N**: Whoa, this was a bitch. But I love it. I haven't checked it for mistakes yet - it's pretty late and I really want to get this published - so it'll probably get re-submitted when I've found and changed all the "to" to "two" and stuff like that. English is not my first language, so be nice?

Also, I'm afraid I lost track of the story somewhere along the middle. Tell me if it works.

I **disclaim **at the top of my lungs. If these were my characters, they'd be living happily ever after. Since they're not, I get to make them miserable. Yay.

* * *

Beast Boy felt bad.

That was nothing new. He'd felt bad every day for three years now. Over time the hurt had become a dull ache in the back of his mind, much like a slight headache that just refuses to go away and acts up every now and then. This Bad Feeling, however, was different and not one he was very well acquainted with, though it did spur memories of a certain blond geomancer.

Guilt.

But three years of practice insured that his face was kept calm and serene, to the point of plain creepiness. So none of the pedestrians gave him strange looks as he bounced down the sidewalk, hands shoved into his pockets and that strange smile on his face, not like they would Before. Of course, his skin wasn't green anymore, courtesy of modern science, but still, if he had been acting on the emotions tearing at his insides, he was positive somebody would have dragged him to the nearest police station. _Or mental institution._

Beast Boy halted at last at his destination; a redbrick building, slim and tall, with green doors and shelves with flowerpots beneath every window. By a window on third floor, all the flowers were limp and colourless. _Dead._

The number next to the door was 67, as his second check confirmed. This really was the place. Beast Boy was truly surprised. It wasn't like he expected her to end up in a million-dollar palace, but he had definitely thought she would choose a home less… lifeless. There was a dull monotony to this building, with the worn-out bricks and the peeled of paint on the doors, and it surprised him. But it fit well in the neighbourhood, he supposed. Beast Boy felt his face contort a brief second. The Headache had just flared up.

Luckily, the aforementioned three years had also taught him how to _not think_ about certain things, especially the ever-present Headache and it's _my_ mood swings. So his mind was almost entirely blank when he casually pulled the hood of his shirt down from his face, buried his hands in his pockets again and strolled over to the green door, bending closer to look a the names listed beside the door. Just a normal teenager looking up an old friend, and nobody gave him looks.

And then all thoughts really did disappear from his head, because the name "Kory Anders" was written in black ink right there on that line next to that button and…

"Beast Boy."

A statement more than a question; and there was not much joy in her voice either _not like Before_ but rather something like fear, something he couldn't place (and his mind refused to follow that train of thought because his mental restraints would not let anything like what was in her voice reach him and make the pain in his head grow and throb like it was beginning to now _stop thinking about it, stop thinking_).

"Hi Star!" A big smile _she knows how I really smile, will she be able to tell the difference?_ and a half-laugh. "Long time no see, huh?"

She was so _different_. The colour of her hair was still as vivid and wild as he remembered it to be, but it had been cut to her shoulders and was, for some reason, less eye-catching now. There were lines in her face that hadn't been there Before, lines that stood out when she was frowning like she was now, and he thought that she had perhaps done more frowning since… well, in the three years. Starfire was wearing worn clothes in dull colours, brown trousers, a black top and a dark green velvet shirt with a hood thrown on top. There were green hair clips keeping her bangs away from her face, and she wore a bracelet, a couple of rings _not on that finger though_ and a pair of small, flat boots on her feet. There was a grocery-bag in one of her hands, and a purse was slung over her shoulder. And there was that weary look on her face and a tenseness to her shoulders that made the Headache pound so fiercely Beast Boy had a hard time ignoring it.

"No one calls me Star anymore, you know. I'm just Kory now."

Beast Boy smiled again, and again it wasn't a true smile, because she wasn't smiling at all, and it was hurting _so much._

"Yeah, it's been a while since anybody's said 'Beast Boy' to me too. Now it's just Garfield. I don't know which is worse!" He placed an arm behind his head and grinned.

Starfires eyes darted up and down the street for a second. "I'm very busy right now, Beast Boy." She met his eyes; he couldn't remember a time where those orbs had been less green. "I mean, Garfield."

"No, no, you can call me Beast Boy, I think it would be weird otherwise, don't you?"

"Beast Boy, then." She half-shrugged. "Can you come by another day?"

None of the pedestrians noticed anything. Why should they? Two old teens talking in a doorway was nothing special. Nobody was behaving out of the ordinary, it seemed. But Beast Boys insides were screaming how wrong it all was. And with all his willpower, he managed to disregard some of those barriers in his head that kept the hurt away and pretended it didn't exist.

"No," he told the redhead, and that stupid, meaningless smile finally vanished (_first barrier down; everything is _not_ okay)._ "I'm here now, right?"

Her eye actually twitched. "I'm busy."

"It's been two years. You can't be that busy."

"I _can't._"

It came out like a breath, a huff of desperation, and now the fear was evident, and her knuckles were white from holding onto the bag so hard.

"Star, I'm coming in," said Beast Boy. "I, I _need_ to come in. Please."

It seemed she couldn't stand the way he looked at her, because she frantically started digging through her purse, telling him "Yes, yes, fine," all the while. She found her keys and moved past him to unlock the door, and then they climbed the stairs in silence. They didn't speak a word until they had entered Starfires apartment, and the word "Oh…" just slipped from Beast Boys mouth.

It was a mess. The kitchen table was littered with letters, breadcrumbs, a pile of books and some other things as well, an orange, an unwashed dish, a blue cup with the word _friendship_ written on it, some paperwork. The rest of the apartment had the same feel of neglect to it, and Beast Boys heart fell all the way down to his stomach when he recognised the dead plants outside the kitchen window.

Starfire threw her keys on the table, then after a quick, sideway glance at Beast Boy picked them up again and hung them on a key-rack next to the door where she also placed her purse.

"Sit down," she offered in a shaky voice, indicating a rickety stool by the overfilled table, and as he obeyed, she began emptying the grocery bag and placing the objects in cupboards and in the fridge. There was a flash of yellow, and Beast Boy smiled genuinely for the first time in… well, he didn't know. And genuine should be understood as something true to what he was feeling inside; the smile itself was small and wavering.

"Mustard, huh?" he said.

The girl froze.

"You know," he began carefully, "that's the first thing I've been able to recognise about you so far."

Thundering silence followed those words. After a few seconds, Starfire stowed the mustard away and turned around.

"It tastes very good," she told him in an empty voice.

"What happened to 'glorious'?"

Her face contorted. She whispered, "Why have you come?"

"Because it's been too long," Beast Boy answered truthfully. "And because… because I'm sorry, Star. I'm sorry I gave up on you, I'm sorry I wasn't a better friend." _Point of no return. No more pretending._ He expected the Headache to get worse now, but for the first time in years, it seemed to get a bit better instead. _Weird._

Starfire was shaking openly now, and her eyes darted left and right and anywhere else than where he sat. "It is fine," she mumbled dismissively.

_No it's not._ The Headache came back with a vengeance at the sight of her just standing there, fidgeting, she looked so _lost. Could I have prevented that?_

"Have you had any contact with Raven?" Beast Boy asked, though he knew the answer.

"No, I have not."

"I haven't either but… we need to find her, Star. We need to go together. You know… pick up the pieces."

"Oh, Beast Boy," she breathed and finally looked at him, faintly, "there is really no pieces left."

He felt like jumping out of the window and get it over with at those words, but he'd been a coward long enough. "I don't believe that," he tried to say with some conviction. "I mean, you still love mustard right? Not everything is different."

"Yes, it is," she said quietly.

"Well okay." His voice was rising in desperation. "But it's not lost, Star!"

She met his eyes, _finally_. "It feels lost," she whispered.

"I know." And he did, because he felt the same way, only with some desperate, irrational hope as well. And that little fraction of _it can get better_ was what was causing him to be here right now. That, and the guilty feeling that had weighed more and more since he woke up on her birthday, the first one after Everything That Happened, and realised he was too afraid to look her in the eyes and couldn't stand hearing her voice. _Slade and the Brotherhood and Trigon I could face but _this_ I ran away from. Some hero I turned out to be._

"It's not lost," he said with more certainty. "We're not lost, Star, we can make it. I'm sorry it took me so long."

Starfires eyes fell to the floor and her body slumped a little bit. Beast Boy had never been too good at reading other peoples emotions, but he was relieved that the tenseness was gone and he dared interpret that as a good sign.

And then she finally gave in, whispering; "You know where Raven is, then?"

Not 'friend' Raven, but it was a start.

* * *

Actually, Beast Boy didn't know where Raven was, as he explained to Starfire. He'd searched for her at a computer at the library, but he hadn't been able to locate her. Starfire had been easier. In the first few months after what happened, when they'd still been together, she'd talked like a waterfall, more than she used to and in a voice shriller than Before. Anyway, she'd mentioned her birth-name, Koriand'r, and something about turning it into a real name. (Beast Boy and Raven never asked why; it was painfully obvious she couldn't stand anything that connected her with memories of what had been, none of them really could. Still, they should have asked. About_ something_, at least.)

It had taken some time browsing the internet, but at last he found a girl named "Kory Anders" who, as it turned out after more snooping, fit the bill. There was an address and a number next to her name.

It took him two long weeks to build up the courage and overcome the mental warning bells and go to that address.

Raven, however, simply vanished. The only thing he could find about her was news articles; a couple of them were about "The Titans Tragedy" as it was dubbed, as well as what happened after, but nothing about Ravens whereabouts.

Beast Boy had no idea how to locate her, but he was going to figure it out somehow. First step had to be contacting Starfire; he'd wasted enough time as it was. So he did, and now they were walking down the street, still looking painfully plain and normal, and they hadn't said much. Starfire had simply picked up her purse and a brown coat and had walked out the door, and Beast Boy had followed.

"Are we, uh… going somewhere?" he asked at last, sending her a sideway glance. Her eyes were so _dull_.

"Yes," she told him without averting her gaze from the street in front of them. "I have had no contact with Raven, but I believe I may know where she is."

"How?" he couldn't help but ask, a bit incredulous. As he remembered, Raven was the one with telepathic abilities. _Maybe you've twisted it around._ No, none of those thoughts.

Starfire brushed him off with a short, "Let us first see if she is there."

"So it's here? Here in Jump?"

That had actually taken him by surprise; to find out Starfire still lived here. After all, the three of them had been too afraid of memories to even look at each other after What Happened, which was why they eventually scattered to the winds and never made contact, so why had she stayed at a place where she was bound to get reminded of better times every single day?

_Perhaps for the same reasons you did it for_, the harder part of his mind told him.

"If I am correct," Starfire said, oblivious to his inner thoughts (_She _isn't_ the telepath, just calm down_), "then it is indeed in this city."

"Weird, huh?" he half-laughed awkwardly, trying to break the tension, "We've all stayed in Jump but we never…" He trailed off, and she didn't react. They moved on in silence, past a bank (Bank of Perez) where they had stopped numerous robberies and further down the street. The sun shone brightly above their heads, but there was a bit of a chill to the air. Autumn was coming in fast.

It was Beast Boy who broke the silence again. "What have you been doing?"

She shrugged, still refusing to look at him. "I work at a bookstore. The owner is very nice."

"Oh. What about your spare time, then?"

Their eyes met briefly. "I read books from the store. That way I can provide better service for the customers."

"Oh," he said again. "Okay."

_That's the building that was nearly destroyed when we were fighting Terra._ He wished Starfire would say something.

And suddenly, she did. "And you? You have been well?"

_No. NO. Anything but._

Beast Boy opened his mouth to say something like "Yeah, fine," but changed his mind before he could think it through and instead said, as fast as he could so that he wouldn't be able to stop himself, "No, I haven't, I thought I was gonna drop dead from pain some times, I even spent some time at a… at a hospital because of it, you know, and I haven't, uh…"

Starfire halted to look at him, wide-eyed from shock. "Oh," she breathed, "Beast Boy, I apologize…"

"No, no, you don't have to, it's fine, I'm fine, and it's not your fault anyway…" He laughed falsely because he was cornered, and the dangerous part of his mind, then one that made the barricades and the rules, screamed at him for getting himself in this position. But there was also a bit of triumph: the girl looking at him now with sadness and guilt was a girl he could remember having called a friend, not like that blank-eyed redhead walking beside him moments earlier.

"We made some horrible mistakes," Starfire stated, and there was no denying it, so he just nodded, and they moved along down the street.

* * *

It was a rundown building down by the docks, abandoned and decaying. It looked like it had once been something like an administration-building, perhaps an office apartment for a shipping company. In any case, it was obvious no one had been there for years. Most windows were smashed, there was graffiti all over the walls and tiles from the roof littered the asphalt around the two ex-Titans.

"Is it… here?"

"Yes, I believe so."

"How do you know?"

She hesitated slightly. "I have been here before." When he opened his mouth to ask, she cut him of with a short, "In the future."

It was an odd statement, but they had been through so many odd things over time, and he chose to trust her. They proceeded to the entrance and were presented with the first obstacle, psychological issues aside; the double doors leading inside were made from solid metal. Something _someone_, however, seemed to have hit the doors with such power that they had crumbled around the middle and were now so twisted and askew they would be impossible to open. The darkness of a corridor could be seen along the edges and at the top and bottom of the entrance. But there was no way Beast Boy and Starfire could fit through those holes and for a few, endless minutes, they just stood and watched and tried to pretend there wasn't a thousand ways they could get past this problem if they would just use their powers.

"Maybe there is a back entrance somewhere," tried Beast Boy, keeping his voice as casual as possible.

"No…" mumbled Starfire and it was hard to know just what she was answering, because she seemed to be talking to herself more than Beast Boy. She turned to look him in the eyes. "We should enter through here."

Beast Boy thought she was perhaps beginning to see the importance of looking their past in the eyes, and the promise of hope made him nod. _We were always stronger together._

A few seconds later, a mouse in a peculiar colour of human skin crawled across the concrete floor inside the building. And some time later, when the mouse had returned to human form, a young woman with vivid red hair finally succeeded in pulling a gap between the two doors big enough for her to get through. _Not that that took much._ If Starfire had been thin before, she was now downright bony to look at.

Starfire met Beast Boys eyes with a grim setting to her mouth and proceeded down the corridor. It was dark except for the rays of light filtering through the shattered glass from windows behind them. The Before-Starfire could easily have lit the place all the way through with a starbolt, but the Kory-Starfire didn't make a move to do so, even when they moved up a flight of stars (iron, very sci-fi) and the light dimmed even further. But of course, Starfire had only ever been as strong as her emotions, and emotions, it seemed, were not her forte right now. Sometimes feeling just hurt too much. They would know if any.

At the forth and final floor, Starfire finally halted in front of a slide door, metal as the previous one had been. She stood perfectly still, staring at the round handle, until Beast Boy coughed and asked, "So this is it?"

"We will see," Starfire answered and in one swift movement opened the door.

_White._ As soon as the thought had hit him, he realised this was really the place.

Where Starfire's apartment had been filled to the brim with any furniture Starfire seemed to have been able to get her hands on, this room was so empty it practically screamed into your head. It was angular and without any windows. There was a futon in a corner as well as a fragile looking chair in another corner. In the third corner stood a black chest opened, and its contents were strewn across the floor around it, books, scrolls, candles, powder, some fabric that could be either clothes or a blanket… it was all a mess, and reminded Beast Boy of Starfires place in spite of all the other differences.

The most peculiar thing about the place was, however, the whiteness that had been the first thing he noticed. As opposed to the corridors they had been walking through the past few minutes, these walls were white and undamaged and seemed to eject some kind of light.

And in the only remaining empty corner sat a cloaked figure with a book in her lap and her hands folded at her stomach. The cloak was entirely grey.

"Raven." Starfire's voice cracked.

"Hmm?" The sound drifted across to them. It reminded Beast Boy of times where Raven would sit with a book like now and not want company nor any questions asked.

"Raven, it's us," he said just in case.

"No," she simply answered, void of any emotion.

"Raven…" Starfire made a hesitant move towards the cloaked girl, but Raven repeated that dull, lifeless word once again:

"No."

"Please –"

"What do you want?" she snapped.

"We want you to come with us," begged Beast Boy. "Come on, get out of here."

"No," once again.

"For old time's sake?" tried Beast Boy.

Both he and Starfire started when behind them, a bag of powder blew up in a dark flash, and purple grains of sand drifted across the floor. Raven didn't move a muscle.

Beast Boy had known from the start this wouldn't be easy, but now he was beginning to fear if it was even possible. He looked to Starfire for support, but her eyes were turned downward, _she's giving up_. A dull sort of numbness began slowly spreading out from his stomach, but then he felt a short surge of anger – and _this_ was something unexpected – and he remembered when years ago, he had rose to the challenge when Raven had clung to her anti-social habits.

"Hey," he said sharply, "you used to never give up."

She sat still as a statue, but Starfire looked at him in sort of awestruck alarm. He ignored her, continuing loudly, "You used to _fight_. You used to _care_."

Not a word he said seem to affect her, if her stony appearance was any indication, and so Beast Boy added, knowing full well the danger of this particular subject, "You used to call us your _friends._"

An explosion this time: gone was the chest, blown to pieces that filled the air around them; Starfire gave a short gasp when a shard of dark wood drew a cut on her cheek.

"You're not alone, Raven!" yelled Beast Boy, even as the wooden pieces were still clattering to the floor, "You need us, and we need you too!"

"I don't need _anybody_!" growled, literally growled, Raven in a barely contained voice that sounded like Rage was getting the upper hand in her mind. The floor trembled, and a candle rolled across the white tiles.

"You do!" dared Beast Boy, "And you know it! I'm sorry, Raven, we're both sorry, we should never have left you alone, and we _never will again_!"

"LIES!" she now downright roared: the book in her lap was ripped to shreds and the air around Beast Boy was filled with paper moving in circles around him as Raven rose to her feet and _grew_, filling the empty whiteness of the room with grey and black and _red_. Her face was contorted, fangs visible in her mouth, her black eyes fixed on him. "Leave," she ordered in a hiss.

Finally, Starfire stepped up. "Please," she said in a low voice. "We need you as well, friend… Raven."

"_Lies_," again, with more intensity this time, but her voice was shaking badly as well. A heavy tremor went through the walls around them again.

"Raven," said Beast Boy, voice shivering with both desperation and fear – fear that the sorceress was too far away, that the three of them were too far apart, that there really was nothing left, that it really was too late and that everything really was his fault, his fault, his fault. "RAVEN!" he yelled when the only response was Starfires startled _scared as well_ gasp as everything, including the futon from the corner, rose and twisted in midair, demonic blackness ascending from Ravens form.

"NEVER COMING BACK!" roared Raven in a voice twisted and raw with rage, and Beast Boy got a sudden, surreal feeling of sitting with two pieces of a puzzle that did not match and pressing them against each other with all the force of desperation.

"But _we're_ here!" The pieces _did_ match, damn it. Even if it didn't appear so. Even if a gentle-minded alien, a goofy changeling and a demon spawn of a sorceress didn't stand an ice sickle's chance in Hell of being friends. Because there was one thing they had in common, at the very least, one overwhelming fact that made them bond in the strange way they had in the past. A need for someone to be there, someone to fend of the loneliness and make it feel like it was worth keeping their heads up.

And one thing, one thing only, was keeping them apart.

Starfire had her eyes closed shut, hands clutched at her chest, looking wildly out of place in her common, dull clothes, black aura swirling in the air around her, the bizarre image perfected by the chair drifting by her head. Raven lost more of her human side with every second that passed. She was shaking heavily now, and Beast Boy's heart ached with the knowledge that she was tearing apart on the inside. Just like Star was. Star, who didn't loose control when faced with pain deeper than could come from wounds, but lost the strength and ability to act instead, which was why Beast Boy was standing in the middle of this all alone.

_All alone_. And this was fear. Loosing the only friends he had left, like he had lost the others. But this time there would be no regret. This time there would be no _guilt_. Not anymore. This was the choice he made, the choice so much harder than walking out the door and never looking back, but the choice that, in the end, would keep him alive, like he had been the last few hours more than he had been for the three whole years that had passed since the world came crashing down around them and ruined everything they had achieved. Everything they had ever _cherished_.

Beast Boy grasped Starfire's hand and walked through the churning, twisting madness of black emotions, tugging the stony girl along. He reached for Raven, the very centre of the chaos unfolding itself around him, with his free hand.

"Take my hand," he begged, barely audible over the crash of the bed smashing to pieces.

"Take my hand," he said again, stretching far and ignored the pain when a sliver of blackness drew a gash in his extended arm.

"Please," he whispered when Raven didn't react, when she seemed to be fading away second by second. "Please."

And suddenly, there was Starfire by his side, a terrified look in her blazing eyes. As the pressure built around them, and over the roar of the walls giving way and everything, simply everything, being destroyed, she called, "We forgive you! Forgive us in return, friend!"

It seemed, after this, that reality was ripped apart.

* * *

**Some time later**

They moved in silence. The only sound heard was from the bushes and trees rustling lightly in the wind, a few fallen leaves dancing across the cobblestone path they were following, floating across the marble tablets on either side of them.

There were no words. But for the first time in a very long time, this was not _wrong_. In fact, it felt very _right_. Hard, too, but that was a part of the game. There had been a time where they had always defied the hardship to do this noble _right thing_, but now a days they had stopped taking their strength for granted, and every attempt to set things straight was a victory in itself, however small it could be.

Beast Boy was in heaven.

When looking back, he knew there had been happier times. But after the years of solitude, this new situation had set him in a state of bliss, and when his face looked serene, he no longer had to fear feeling otherwise on the inside.

It didn't look serene now.

The three of them came to a halt at the end of the path. Two tablets were raised here, where four paths connected, and they were both larger and more ornamented than most others, a small chain around them marking that this ground should not be tread upon. Starfire, Raven and Beast Boy all stood still in front of the graves, in acceptable silence. The words they had needed to say had been said in the ruins of a building at the harbour, when Raven clutched at Beast Boy's and Starfire's hands and sobbed her apology and asked them to stay with her. It must have looked strange to the onlookers who had gathered as the brick walls began to collapse: there sat the three x-titans amongst shattered glass and bended metal and wailed for all they were worth, hanging on to each other for dear life and all repeating the same words again and again. _I'm sorry. Forgive me. Please. Don't leave me. I'm so sorry._ And then some _I should have…_ and _I just couldn't…_ and _I tried, but…_

In the end, they gave each the forgiveness their guilt so demanded.

Beast Boy took a deep, steadying breath. Starfire stepped forward and placed a bouquet of white flowers on the ground between the two tombstones, resuming her stance next to the others when finished. They looked at the words carved in to the stone and said nothing.

_To say nothing_. That had been their downfall, Beast Boy thought. Or guilt had, since the fear of facing this was what made them keep their mouths shut about things that ought to be said. And it was _nobody's_ fault. That was the true irony. Because when you can shot bolts of energy or turn into fifteen different animals or move things with your mind, then surely, _surely_, the was something you could have done instead of just watching _them_ fall, half and half expecting some sort of last-second-miracle like there had always been –

But not this time. The circumstances hadn't mattered. Only the outcome. _Robin_ was dead. _Cyborg_ was dead. Dead, and the void the two left in the lives of the alive was filled with self-loathing and fear of a whole lot of things, like being blamed. After all, they were heroes. They could fly. They could do the impossible. So something could have been done right?

In the aftermath, Beast Boy couldn't face that fear. Nor could the other two. That was what caused them to drift apart. He was so proud, so _relieved_ he had found the strength to face the demons, and that he had helped the others do the same. When out of the corner of his eye, he saw tears trailing down Starfire's cheek, he took her hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze. A sad smile tugged at her lips.

Raven didn't react at all. But her hood was down, and this spoke volumes to those who knew her.

The wind made the white flowers move back and forth between the two marble tablets. Standing there with Raven and Starfire in content silence, Beast Boy imagined he could feel the spirits of Cyborg and Robin near them, perhaps in the wind that had caressed the flower petals before them, and when Raven closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, he felt somewhat certain of the fact.

Everything might have been turned upside down, but it wasn't lost, and now he was sure it never would be again.


End file.
